Changing the lights in the office room to the brightest daylight variant I could find and adding an additional 5000 Lux desk lamp during winter months was a gamechanger for focus and productivity.
Still enjoy the warm glow of the living room lights in the evening, though.
I have 2700k spots at my work desk’s soldering station, I honestly couldn’t tell you why but I prefer it. Maybe because I’ve always had warm lighting when soldering. Makes me wanna get neutral or cold spots and try that for a change.
For me the bigger issue is light intensity, I swear the old lighting setup at that work desk was as bright as a grave light… dunno how anyone could use that.
I would think that accurate color representation would’ve generally required the bright lights and broad spectrum coverage of sunlight, so I imagine people just…painted during the day, by daylight.
I don’t know. I feel like I’m more alert and the brain is more active with 4k+ in the day time (on days when there’s low light outside). But in the evening I want it down to 2700k or so, in order to get a proper sleep cycle.
Take a look at the Adaptive Lighting integration if you haven’t already. You can set the colour/temp/brightness of your bulbs for daytime and nighttime, per zone if you want, and it will nicely fade over a set period around dawn and dusk.
Also, the first time I wrote that last sentence it got autocorrected to “around dawn and dick”.
Or go full high-tech and install lights with adjustable color temperature.
I may be ahead of the curve a bit. Adjustable colour temp didn’t seem enough. My whole apartment has RGB bulbs since about 5-6 years ago. I just couldn’t go back to on/off one shade lights ugh.
Also I rock a 300w LED panel to get a bit more brightness in my winter days, but that’s not RGB though.
I mean yeah they are RGBWW if you put it like that but wouldn’t RGB already include different temps of white? So all of my bulbs are Hue, and yes, they were somewhat of an investment even though my apt is not that huge. Like 300e total years ago though, for uhmm the basic 250e colour set, 5 e36 bulbs hub and remote, and then later I also bought two e14s.
But the LED panel I have is actually a 300w growlight. I couldn’t put it on full I’d burn my eyes. But it serves very well as light therapy on the mildest setting. It’s not got any adjustments except a dimmer though.
wouldn’t RGB already include different temps of white?
Well yes, but actually no. You can produce white-looking light with just RGB, but the quality is going to be shit. Sunlight is made up of the whole spectrum of visible wavelengths, while an RGB will only produce a much sparser spectrum with strong peaks at green, red and blue, and not much else. Looking directly into the light you might not be able to tell, but once the light bounces off colored objects things start looking weird compared to natural light. That’s what rgbww lights are fixing by adding wider-spectrum white LEDs into the mix. For white lights, there is a number called the Color Rendering Index (CRI) that tells you how closely a light’s output spectrum resembles natural sunlight. CRI 100 is perfect sunlight, less than CRI 80 is already pretty crappy looking light.
I’ve been rocking my same hue lights for 8 years. I love having blue and red in the same light fixture. Creates a nice night purple with funny shadows.
Dear god no, you never want mixed light, it’s like walking into an alien space ship or from the Arctic to the Sahara desert just by going to a different room.
This.
My wife loves warm light, but I dislike it. I find my visual acuity better under daylight lights, and find myself cursing if I’m trying to work on something (screws in kids toys or whatever)
Personally I just go for warm white for places which should be cozy and cold white for places with a more utilitarian use.
Cold white LED light bulbs are actually more efficient, so I’ll even get more light out of the same power lamp making it easier to see what I’m doing (which is what you generally need lights for in an utilitarian use location).
Both. Both are good.
Daylight for the work rooms and things like home-office or homework desks, warm light for cozy couch corners and bedrooms.
Or go full high-tech and install lights with adjustable color temperature.
I installed Wiz, they can do RGB, but the real trick is to program double tap.
click on, warm white 70%
click on, off, on Daylight 100%
Bonus: Home assistant, throw a rave
R G B R B R G B G…
Nah 3kK is cool enough for work unless you’re like a graphic designer that needs to see colours accurately. 2.7kK for the rest of the house btw
I need those blues though to keep me awake
Exactly.
Changing the lights in the office room to the brightest daylight variant I could find and adding an additional 5000 Lux desk lamp during winter months was a gamechanger for focus and productivity.
Still enjoy the warm glow of the living room lights in the evening, though.
Good luck doing any soldering with that.
I solder with 2700k lighting all the time for extended periods of time. Not sure what the problem is.
Shadows are soft and pertinax color doesn’t help.
I have 2700k spots at my work desk’s soldering station, I honestly couldn’t tell you why but I prefer it. Maybe because I’ve always had warm lighting when soldering. Makes me wanna get neutral or cold spots and try that for a change.
For me the bigger issue is light intensity, I swear the old lighting setup at that work desk was as bright as a grave light… dunno how anyone could use that.
My eyesight is shot now. Pretty much all soldering I do with a microscope that has daylight LEDs on anyway.
If you paint you need those 5000 ones or your paintings will look like shit.
Meanwhile all the good paintings were from before lights were invented
That’s why art studios had only windows letting the north light enter. Roughly same uniform cool light all day.
Until the invention of the paint tube (and rail) so you could paint outside.
I would think that accurate color representation would’ve generally required the bright lights and broad spectrum coverage of sunlight, so I imagine people just…painted during the day, by daylight.
Oil paint needs forever to dry anyways (between layers)
Except for the cave paintings, that’s exactly the case.
I just have bulbs that can change the light temperature
I don’t know. I feel like I’m more alert and the brain is more active with 4k+ in the day time (on days when there’s low light outside). But in the evening I want it down to 2700k or so, in order to get a proper sleep cycle.
Hahaha more kelvin is cooler
Yup. Humans and physics are weird.
I know?
We have a “sunshine” script in Home Assistant that sets all bulbs to daylight and 100%. Great for livening up overcast days.
Take a look at the Adaptive Lighting integration if you haven’t already. You can set the colour/temp/brightness of your bulbs for daytime and nighttime, per zone if you want, and it will nicely fade over a set period around dawn and dusk.
Also, the first time I wrote that last sentence it got autocorrected to “around dawn and dick”.
Hah, yea I have some automations I’ve used (including a modifiable sunrise) since before that existed, but basically has the same effect.
I may be ahead of the curve a bit. Adjustable colour temp didn’t seem enough. My whole apartment has RGB bulbs since about 5-6 years ago. I just couldn’t go back to on/off one shade lights ugh.
Also I rock a 300w LED panel to get a bit more brightness in my winter days, but that’s not RGB though.
Most strips are RGB. The one you are looking for is RGBWW. Full RGB and Warm & White. But they are expensive ><
I mean yeah they are RGBWW if you put it like that but wouldn’t RGB already include different temps of white? So all of my bulbs are Hue, and yes, they were somewhat of an investment even though my apt is not that huge. Like 300e total years ago though, for uhmm the basic 250e colour set, 5 e36 bulbs hub and remote, and then later I also bought two e14s.
But the LED panel I have is actually a 300w growlight. I couldn’t put it on full I’d burn my eyes. But it serves very well as light therapy on the mildest setting. It’s not got any adjustments except a dimmer though.
Well yes, but actually no. You can produce white-looking light with just RGB, but the quality is going to be shit. Sunlight is made up of the whole spectrum of visible wavelengths, while an RGB will only produce a much sparser spectrum with strong peaks at green, red and blue, and not much else. Looking directly into the light you might not be able to tell, but once the light bounces off colored objects things start looking weird compared to natural light. That’s what rgbww lights are fixing by adding wider-spectrum white LEDs into the mix. For white lights, there is a number called the Color Rendering Index (CRI) that tells you how closely a light’s output spectrum resembles natural sunlight. CRI 100 is perfect sunlight, less than CRI 80 is already pretty crappy looking light.
I’ve been rocking my same hue lights for 8 years. I love having blue and red in the same light fixture. Creates a nice night purple with funny shadows.
Wyze light bulbs for the win. I can pick 255 colors.
Oh no, 8-bit is back again… 🫣
Dear god no, you never want mixed light, it’s like walking into an alien space ship or from the Arctic to the Sahara desert just by going to a different room.
Wow, didn’t think about it this way…
But for me: Hell, yeah! Added bonus!
Signals the primeval parts of your brain:
“Here you have to fight to survive the horrors of the pleistocean ice shield!”
Or, after changing the room:
“This is your dimly fire-lid cave, here you are save to relax!”
I’m like this, home office, kitchen, bathroom etc is daylight like 5k, only the bedroom and a corner lamp in the couch room are 3k.
This. My wife loves warm light, but I dislike it. I find my visual acuity better under daylight lights, and find myself cursing if I’m trying to work on something (screws in kids toys or whatever)
Personally I just go for warm white for places which should be cozy and cold white for places with a more utilitarian use.
Cold white LED light bulbs are actually more efficient, so I’ll even get more light out of the same power lamp making it easier to see what I’m doing (which is what you generally need lights for in an utilitarian use location).